The fear that has crept into the minds of the consumers post the terror attacks couple of weeks back is expected to spell boom for online shopping business during this festive season. According to industry estimates, online purchases is expected to go up by over 100% from Rs 700-800 crore last year to Rs 1,300-1,400 crore this fiscal and a huge part of it will happen during festive times, starting from Durga Puja and going up till Christmas and New Year.
?The terror fear is still looming large among Indians and people are scared of getting into crowded places, be it malls or central markets across different parts of the country and hence there will be a good jump in online purchases this time vis-?-vis last year,? says an industry expert. According to him, the phenomenon would be more pronounced in metros and mini metros as these have been the target cities. Moreover, since the Internet penetration is higher in these places vis-?-vis semi urban areas, they will contribute over 70% of the total e-sales this time.
?The number of people accessing the Internet has gone up 10-fold from 2.5-3.0 million in 2000 to around 35 million now. Even the income levels have gone up substantially in the recent past but at the same time people are so tied up with their day-to-day activities that they hardly get time to go shopping and hence most of them prefer to send gifts online,? adds K Vaitheeswaran, COO, Indiaplaza.in. The company, which is eyeing revenue of $100 million by 2011, saw a jump of 200% in sales last year and expects this to double this time with consumer durables contributing a major part to the total sales.
?Consumer durables form major 40% of the total online sales in value, followed by electronics at 20%, jewellery another 20% and the rest is contributed by sweets and gift hampers,? he says.